Mystery over ancient tribe ‘mummified by the desert’ 4,000 years ago solved
THE MYSTERIOUS origins of an ancient tribe whose bodies were found perfectly preserved in a desert in China have finally been identified. DNA analysis of Bronze Age mummies discovered in tombs in the Tarim Basin reveal they belonged to indigenous folk descended from ancient Eurasians. The finding flies in the face of previous research on the corpses, which had suggested that they belonged to western travellers. The groups’ Western features and unusual dress and diet had led experts to conclude that they were migrants from southern Russia. The new research, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, puts to bed once and for all a debate that has raged for decades. In the 1990s, roughly 300 mummies dating from between 2,000 B.C. to 200 A.D. were discovered in the Taklamakan Desert in China’s Xinjiang region. The area’s dry, arid conditions and freezing cold nights naturally mummified the remains of locals, who were buried in boat-like tom...